Danny Letham
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An original work that bears witness and testifies!
Review of Andrew Stranglens' "Harken", and "Secret Orchard Apparatus",
by Danny Letham { Executive Producer of John Fahey's penultimate record: "Hitomi", issued by LivHouse Records.}
The movie "Ragtime" has spawned countless imitators of its opening scenes of the horseless carriage in a sepia still photograph coming to life and being driven into the full-colour of "modern life". Like many fine ideas it has become devalued, but here is a worthy and valuable successor with a similar concept, only this time observed in sound rather than vision.
There is a similar theme too, observing that "progress" may be seen as a liberator, but it brings its own cruelties. Andrew Stranglen's efforts presented here [Harken / Secret Orchard Apparatus], although benefitting from modern production values, do not "contemporise" old-time music, rather, [they] take a contemporary view of the timeless quality of blues, buck-dance and, to a degree, vaudeville. This it does quite masterfully.
In this case the target "classic album" is more an amalgam of ideas based on a number of albums with the result that the albums are not plagiarised in any way, merely acknowledged as influences. But Mr. Fahey himself is never bowdlerised or even imitated.
Found sound including Stranglen's trademark train co-exist menacingly with acoustic guitar that, in the main, seeks a respite from the depressive ills of life today through an eerie mix of nostalgic musical references and a sound-mix best described as "menacing". In general terms, the train bears down on you, but some not inconsiderable relief is obtained, and by the end of the last track ("Years have gone by" [Harken], in the sprit of and inspired by Fahey's "Days have.." but not an imitation) there is a feeling of resignation to one's lot and cautious optimism.
The overall feeling is one of mystical allegory, reaching into areas that "Ragtime" never even dreamed of. After a straight-ahead bluesy-dancey opener - lets call it the overture - Mr Stranglen tells a story that hurts. And, children, I fear the story is true…… or maybe it is just my projection, of the allegory of the Steam Thresher[Harken].
Nowadays, life is like getting hit repeatedly by the same train. Not even a series of them. When was it ever different? Before the steam age, when the metaphor was not yet possible? The real horror-story of our punishment is that we can never know. Some time ago we lost that opportunity.
Time was, blues was a feeling and the devil was a dancer. Now we try to recreate that scene by picking country blues or admiring our friends do it. We do this to try to feel the pain of our ancestors, for today nobody feels any pain, they only suffer it.
In 70's parlance I have a mental picture of a supergroup that could never ever have happened while the participants were all alive, given both the asynchronous nature of the combination and the attitudes of the day. Imagine what would have happened if you had persuaded a 1950's edition Mingus, a 70's John McLaughlin, and a 60's Gene Clark to jam together, and you're sniffing the wind but that is still not even close to what 00's Stranglen is doing! All comparisons are odious, and despite my having mentioned some names just now, I think one of the most pleasing things about these works is their overall lack of (relatively) commonplace reference points, except for maybe some quotations of our old friends, [John Fahey, & the Anthology of American Folk Music -see Smith, Harry ]. We are in "sounds a bit like" territory, rather than in "obviously influenced by" - and, most pleasing of all, the quotations where they do exist are in the best jazzman tradition of being placed in a justified context and still bearing the quote marks.
So you have an original work that bears witness and testifies!
You might think I am just a sucker for anything you come up with - and that may be right enough, but honestly this stuff is f***ing wonderful.
- Danny Letham, Dyserth, Wales, UK June 2003
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Patrick P. Daley
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Harken! Get Stranglen!
Given Andrew's inspiration from John Fahey, I expected to like this. But I liked it better than expected. You can clearly hear Fahey's influence - chord oriented fingerstyle, open tunings, use of dissonance and some sound effects. But unlike Fahey, where dissonance is sometimes tooooo much, Andrew has enough dissonance to keep me interested, but never so much that I feel like punching a hole in a wall ;-) There is even a 30 minute song (Dream Thresher) that I get sucked into while driving. i.e when it's a short trip, I feel like driving around some more! Good sound, good songs, and very well played. I highly recommend Andrew Stranglen's Harken CD.
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